Episode 128: Hadi Awada's Journey to Transforming Workplace Culture

Thanks, Dad. Great to be here. I'm honored, and I'm not the only trailblazer sitting in the room. You have also set the industry ablaze with the podcast you do. I'm honored to be here. Thank you.

I would say that I lead with culture and people, and I don't lead through them; I lead with them. I think culture is the first thing that I look at because it is the only thing that beats everything. As you look at people, the people that you put around you represent exactly who you are. That culture has to manifest itself in what you're trying to bring into leadership. There are three things I usually look at: the people, the org, and the governance. I hire people for situation, not for jobs. I develop organizations that are created for empowerment, and I govern with that empowerment in mind, so we keep things simple.

Well, I worked for a big corporate animal for a long time, and at some point I decided I had just had enough of it because every day when I went to work, it was draining in terms of energy. I remember coming home one day and my wife saying, 'Why are you always so exhausted? When people come from Europe, you're out for the week and you come home and you're just drained.' I said, 'Well, I have to be on all the time.' She said, 'But why do you have to be on? Why don't you just be the same person at work that you are at home? It doesn't require any additional energy.' That resonated. I wanted to be in a situation where that was possible. I left big corporate America and went to a $20 million startup with 60 employees. It grew substantially in the two years I was there. Something clicked with me later where I decided I wanted to go back and change corporate, and that became my mission. I came back to the same company, actually. They hired me back. I landed in the UK, eventually made it to Shanghai. I learned all these cool things as I was going through it. When I became a vice president in Asia, I sat around the table with all these other vice presidents, who were the gods before. You looked at these people making all the decisions, driving the company. I realized that my time in that small company, I had made more decisions and did more things that mattered than any of those people sitting around that table had ever done without a safety net.

Of course. Everything is related to a payback. In life, you see your successes, but you don't see how you got there; you see the people that got you there. That's where this whole theory of culture for me came. I'm not the first one to invent it. A lot of people have stumbled on that culture beats everything for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. But you have to actually not say that; you have to live it. You have to imagine yourself in the culture you want to be. You want to walk into your job every day and make sure that's the culture you want to be around. You need that to manifest within the other people, and if they don't, there's a door and a bus they can take to another bus stop. There are plenty of people that share your convictions and values. You shouldn't surround yourself with people that have the same characteristics or leadership style, but the right character and culture are interesting. Having the same shared level of convictions goes a long way for how the rest of the organization sees that.

It comes down to sizing people right. Of course, the mantra around automotive has been 'In God we trust, everyone else bring data.' Creating a culture of trust is important, and finding people that have perspective. As you size people, one of the main characteristics I look for in leadership style is perspective: does the person have the ability to take a step back and see what is going on? Not that many people will do that. You'd be surprised how many people keep their head down and just keep marching. You want to surround yourself with people that will take a step back, have a perspective, and question things. That tends to get them out of the weeds. The other thing I look at is the problem pendulum. Problems can be anywhere from 0% to 100%. You've got to figure out where you are and when you need to be involved in that pendulum. Sometimes you've got vice presidents that are involved in the 5% level of problem. Why do you need to be involved in where we're going to schedule lunch for today? Some people feel like they need to do that, and it creates an environment where people don't feel trusted. As long as you keep your team in that perspective—'Are you really feel like you need to be in that problem solving for that problem at 5% of the pendulum?'—it gives them the perspective to take a step back. 80% of what I do in my day-to-day is keep my team cohesive and operating. Of course, I think about strategy and all this other stuff, but so do they. They bring these ideas, and we pull these things together because we keep them cohesive. When you've got a high-performing team, there's a lot of friction. Everybody is a fiery red, extremely organized, and they've got data that makes them smarter. They use that data to drive their objective or their agenda. Your job as a leader is to make sure they all get along like a family. If you've got multiple children, you raise them all the same, they all have different personalities, each one is playing their role, but you've got to keep them as one and move them together. That's how you keep them out of the weeds.

No politics policy, yes.

Like I said, no politics policy, at least in my team. One of the things I really enjoy as a leader is watching my team win, whether it's a customer win, a problem we solve, or recognition internally about the mobility team versus some of the other teams. It brings me joy to see that winning. When we do win like that, we advertise it a lot, and we make people want to be part of our culture in mobility. As you start to set that up and people want to come work for you because they want to, it starts to trigger people to ask questions like, 'What kind of DNA do I need to be on that team?' That no politics policy stands out as the first thing. There is zero politics in what we do. We may posture, but we don't play politics. And it's a very tricky game. Nobody makes it to the top without understanding how savvy you need to be in certain cases, but there's a difference between overplaying your politics versus just posturing.

Positive conflict is a really good way to lead, and creating enjoyable competition is a way to offset that. The way we set up our business, we've got three general managers that run it, and we create a lot of positive competition between those three. We give out the Sandbagger Award, we do funny things—some people go up on stage and dress like AC/DC outfits. We always try to compete through the creative side. When you've got a bunch of fiery reds that are leading with a bunch of blue in their back pocket because they're very organized, it's hard to take time to think about creativity. You need to always create an environment where creativity is at the center, only argue about the data, and have fun with positive competition and reward it in a fun way.

We take time. We do a lot of chat groups, one in the leadership team, and we keep a lot of humor in the chat group. That humor leads to creativity on who can be the most witty and who can say the funniest things without crossing lines, keeping it respectful. We keep that environment in the background. We recently went offsite in Detroit and brought in a company called Music Works. We took a step back from all the strategy and tactical discussions. This group split us up into four teams. One team learned how to rap and create a rap song, another learned how to beatbox, another breakdance, and the other did graffiti. At the end, we had to pull this production together. Everyone kind of did it. The interesting part was because the culture of our team is very competitive, instead of using the creativity to bring the production together, the rappers made up songs about the other people, the beatboxers were dissing the breakdancers, and it made it fun. I had to change my closing speech after that. I was going to be very presidential and give the 'thank you for coming to the strategy session' speech, but it turned into, 'Hey, thanks for coming to the concert. We won't be stopped, we can't be stopped.' It resonated. People felt motivated. They walked out with that. You can't walk away from fun. I think fun is the ultimate creativity.

Yes. Now everybody's signed up, and they all have this accountability to each other. When Renato calls Matthias and asks him for a favor, they have that connection. It's no longer 'I need to do this for Renato,' it's 'I want to do this for my colleague.' That's a very different level of service for the internal customer.

Respect is at the center of everything we do. There's no reason to disrespect anybody. You can be firm and fair, but there's no reason for disrespect. When I think about accountability, my mind goes more towards anticipation and initiative. People who have a strong sense of accountability tend to anticipate things so they can avoid problems, which is also showing accountability. You've got to reward those characteristics as well. Accountability isn't just 'we failed, who's accountable?' It's 'we succeeded—who's accountable?' It's what happened along the journey, what characteristics did people exhibit that got us to where we are. When you look at these successes and turn around to see how that happened, you don't see the steps you took; you see the people. You remember all their names, where they came from, and you follow where they go after that because you're connected with them. All those people give you a sense of accountability through the steps that they take. As they anticipate things and intercept them so they don't become problems, that's a form of accountability. That's the kind of accountability we try to do on our team. We don't wait for the results because the results are just the results. It's forward-thinking accountability. If accountability is looking backward, it becomes blame. If it's forward, it becomes positive accountability. The only thing you've got to look at backward when there is a problem is what systems or processes led us to this. It's never a person; it's always some kind of system or process that got you there. When people try to do root cause analysis, they always land on 'this person didn't follow the policy,' not 'what was wrong with the policy that allowed the person to deviate?' You've got to figure out how to fix processes.

The thing I've been really preaching and demonstrating is transparency. It goes back to what I said before. When my wife told me, 'Why are you a different person at work than you are at home? It takes so much energy to not be transparent.' I know there are certain things you're not allowed to tell people because they're confidential, but be your authentic self. Be transparent, and make sure you believe that everyone is trying to be their best person. If you do that, they will also be transparent. Some people take a long time to warm up and tell you things; sometimes people are afraid. You've got to break that paradigm of fear. Have them want to be there and communicate and contribute. It all comes down to transparency. This will eliminate politics and command and control. It creates an environment where everybody feels they can approach you and that they themselves are approachable. It's an interesting trait that you've identified.

Everything you said is extremely valid. Most people, until they try it, don't understand how much energy they save when they show up as their authentic selves. I was at an event last week, and I won't name any names, but I ran into a couple of people I had conversations with, and it was a very clear facade they had on. It's so superficial; you see right through it. In different cultures, it's different. Americans don't hide being superficial; it's very on their sleeve. When you go to China or Europe, it's different. They are all, if you compare them to fruits—coconuts, peaches, all these different things. But it's unbelievably draining when you have to do that. As we look at where we are moving in this industry, I think leaders have to have that empathy; they have to practice that more. I have kids: an 18-year-old, a 17-year-old, and a 14-year-old. What I'm learning with this new generation is that they don't really care to handle that. It's not that they can't handle the pressures that we used to handle growing up with tough love; they just don't care to do it. It's so true. They just don't care about it. It's 'Why should I be pressured? I don't need to do that.' That's coming. It's not a matter of if we're going to allow that to happen in the workplace; they're going to transform the work environment to there. We've got to have that empathy, be able to relate to that, and start with ourselves. We have to be who we are at work, the same person that we are at home, so that we can see that this is what they expect. They are not asking you to be like them; they are just asking you to be your best you. And your best you is probably who you are when you go to the other side of your closet and take the clothes that make you comfortable.

I like to wear a button-up shirt that's comfortable. I like to have it untucked all the time. I wear that on the weekend too. I go walk my dog, and I have that kind of outfit on. That's just what I like. I enjoy it. I like my white tennis shoes. I wear that to work. There's nothing wrong with doing that; it doesn't make you inappropriate. Mary from GM changed the dress code to just 'dress appropriately.' These things are starting to resonate through society, especially in the US. People need to have more empathy around how to approach this next generation that's coming in, otherwise we're going to get run over by them. We're not going to be able to build a successful team if we don't understand them. We're at a time right now where it's possible that we'll have five generations in the workforce at one time. Millennials are already moving into leadership roles, and Gen Z is right behind them. Each generation has different communication preferences and aspirational values. As a leader, you need to understand all of these things to create a high-performance team and attract talent. The time for transformation is now.

Mobility helps you grow when you choose to be an international citizen. Moving from the US to Europe, spending time in Germany, the UK, then Asia, and being of Middle Eastern descent, you kind of get a sense that there's one common thing: people just want to be who they are, and they don't want to be judged or measured based on who you want them to be. It's a very simple principle. It's so easy to get the best out of somebody by allowing them to be. Why would you want to take a perfectly good person and change them to something else where they can't feel comfortable performing in their own clothes? It's a weird thing to do. It reminds me of in the past in the UK, if they still do this in the government, where they put these weird wigs on. Why would they do that? Show up in your own clothes and let's get things done based on who you are. Be your best self.

We binge-watch a lot. The last one we just started watching is The Gentlemen. I think it's based in the UK. A guy was in the UN and gets pulled out because his father was dying; he was a Duke. The inheritance was supposed to go to the oldest child but ends up going to the middle child who was in the UN, a very disciplined military soldier. He finds out his father was running a marijuana cartel in the background, and now he's inherited all this and trying to figure out how to piece it together. Very interesting. We like to watch things like this where people end up in situations they weren't expecting and have to fish their way out. Succession was another one we were pretty deep into. I'm rewatching Succession with my daughter right now. It's been a great experience to talk to her about corporate life. When they're talking about making an acquisition and everybody just says yes and agrees with Logan because they're all afraid of him, I said, 'I've been in that room. I've seen that actually happen.' She was like, 'Mom, really?' Yep.

The Verve Pipe, actually. I followed them. At 15, I didn't like how music was being written, so I decided to join a band. I taught myself how to play guitar and taught them how to write songs. I still can't read music, but I can write music. I started to follow the Verve Pipe because the Verve Pipe, Counting Crows, Dave Matthews, and this whole Seattle sound came in. The last show I went to was before COVID, at the Masonic in downtown Detroit. It was The Verve Pipe, a very small venue. I got to meet the band afterward and had a drink with them next door. It was nice.

I block out the first two hours that I wake up, and that's my own time. I'm not active until 8 AM. The only exceptions I make are if Asia wants to have a call with me, but I tend to be accommodating to Asia. I'll do those more at nighttime because I'm a late owl. I usually reposition my Asia meetings to the evening. I like to take those first two hours to myself. I read emails without responding, I read text messages without responding, and I take a look at the headlines of what's going on in the industry that's related to us. Usually, in the last half hour, I think about who on my team do I need to help today, what doors do I need to open so that people can be successful.

All that is linked. Reading the text messages and emails, you know everybody has their own agenda. That's okay. I'm not one of these people that tells people not to have their own agenda. I think the world is created around people who have their own agendas. It's how you take everybody's agenda, see them, see what their agendas are, and make them all work together. That's the key. Otherwise, you're trying to change people, and you're not supposed to do that. My whole philosophy is to use their superpowers to get the whole team to success so that everybody is happy. I read those emails and text messages to get all the different sides of the equation, every different street corner. When Nicholas is asking for this and that, and he tells you he needs help, you've got to understand why he's asking and what the potential traps are as you start down that path to help him. Otherwise, you just open that door for him and he falls into a trap. I'm always looking two, three, four steps ahead, trying to understand what his agenda is without challenging it, learning through all the different peripherals, and then doing the right thing.

Pleasure. Thanks for having me. I'm really honored to be here. Which number am I? How many people have you interviewed so far?

All right, well, I'm glad to be in your 120s. You'll have a number.

I'm there with you. Let's do it.